We had a wonderful time celebrating Valentine’s Day with our amazing room moms and parent volunteers. Our 100th Day of kindergarten was equally as exciting. The kids participated in counting by 10s to 100 to group items and construct STEM projects. They also showed off their One Hundred Day attire during our classroom fashion show.
The kids have been busy finishing their “How-to Books” in Writer’s Workshop. The aspiring authors are enjoying teaching each other what that they are good at or know about by providing step by step directions. They have been working together as peer editors to assist and educate one another.
We read and explored the poem, “The Stray Cat”. The class answered inquiry questions to improve comprehension and to deepen their understanding of the vocabulary. The kiddos were also introduced to the online, leveled reading program Raz-kids.
In addition, the students worked in their leveled Words Their Way (spelling) groups and participated in sight word learning centers. They had the opportunity to meet with the 8th grade students to design a Monster Project that the older students will sew together to present to the younger learners.
From the Desk of Ms. Kaim:
February was another event-filled month in first grade. It seems like the shortest month of the year had the most special events! We began by learning about the Chinese New Year and the animals of the zodiac. After this, the boys and girls enjoyed Taste of Europe, an event that had to be rescheduled due to the school closings in January. Of course, we loved passing out cards to each other on Valentines’ Day and learning about being upstanders from our buddies. The book Esio Trot was a perfect selection to promote kindness and love.
In honor of Lincoln’s birthday, we learned about the life of our sixteenth president. The boys and girls also enjoyed comparing their heights and shoe sizes to those of Abraham Lincoln. Our continent of the month was Africa. The first graders read Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock, investigated Egypt, used adinkra stamps, and learned how to play mancala. We concluded our visit to Africa with another great Taste!
Our math lessons this month provided the first graders a variety of different strategies to use in addition and subtraction situations. The big event of the month was the 100th day of school. The students were so proud to bring in the 100-Page books they had written. They were excited to celebrate the 100th day with activities that included the following: acting out the story One Hundred Hungry Ants, creating a googol, making 100 year old self-portraits, investigating 100 pennies, eating 100 piece snacks, building 100 cup towers, cutting out 100 words, locating 100 countries, and much, much more!
In science, we began our study of earth materials. The first graders started by investigating volcanoes and rocks that came from volcanoes. We read the nonfiction book Hill of Fire and learned about the Ring of Fire. We also explored river rocks and sorted rocks in different ways. This included using screens to sort rocks by size. Our interest in rocks extended to some of our fiction book selections, too. After reading Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Stone Soup, the first graders discussed what they would wish for if they had magic pebbles and wrote their own recipes for stone soup.
Another writing project built on our recent trip to Historic Wagner Farm. The first graders chose which farm animal they considered the best and wrote opinion pieces defending their selections. This month’s only field trip also included time in the great outdoors. We visited North Park Village Nature to learn about making maple syrup. We drilled holes, inserted spiles, and hung jugs on two trees, but it was too cold for the sap to run!
The first graders are looking forward to sharing their hard work during our Meet the Authors event in March!
From the Desk of Ms. L. Murray:
Valentines' Day, Chinese New Year, Family Interview Projects, architecture, twirly birds, homesteads, oh my! For such a short month, we sure did a lot! The month began with 2nd Graders presenting their Family Interview Projects. It was such an amazing experience to learn about our students’ cultural heritages and family histories. Parents came to view projects and each parent made a point of looking at every project. What a special community event! Second Graders were also treated to a Chinese Paper Artist who taught the students to cut paper to create pig masks in honor of the new year. Next, we experienced a hands-on field trip to the Chicago Architecture Center. At the Center, students were treated to a tour of the facility where they viewed a short video on the history of Chicago as a three-dimensional model light up before us to highlight the areas discussed. The students then participated in the design process as they were asked to create four different structures out of white Legos. The Legos were white to allow students to imagine the pieces to be anything they wanted!
In Language Arts, we then began our next class novel, Riding Freedom. A moving piece of historical fiction, this novel is based on the real life of the first woman stage coach driver and woman voter in the United States. The students will focus on the comprehension strategies of using text evidence to support opinions regarding character traits, identifying problem and solution, defining new vocabulary in context, as well as naming literary devices such as simile, metaphor and personification.
In Math, we finished completed Chapters 5 and 6 and began 7! We are learning various strategies for multiplying and dividing. The focus on the chapters is not solely the ease with which students can use multiplication facts but rather how to use related facts to quickly solve multi-step problems where multiplication and division are the primary operations. Students will finish Chapter 7 by learning about the order of operations. Next up, fractions!
In Social Studies, we worked with partners to create homesteads to "settle" our class town, "Bellton." We talked about materials that would have been available in the early 1800's and the type of structure that might have been used. We then connected this to the types of structures that existed in Chicago. Next, we voted on where to settle our town. It was agreed that close to the river and at the base of the mountains would make the most sense as we would be close to fresh water, fish and enjoy the protection of the conifer trees at the base of the mountains. Finally, we played the original game (created by me!) "Stake Your Claim!" to determine the order in which homesteaders could settle!
In Science, we began a new round of centers on the topic of, "What Goes Around!" Students investigated twirly birds to determine how they move. After these observations, we discussed controlled variables. Students then worked with groups to determine a controlled variable such as the placement of the paperclip on the stem of the twirly bird, the height at which it is dropped or the number of propellers. Then, students collected data to determine if the variable changed the consistency with which the twirly bird hit a target from the height of 36 inches. Other center activities include: Technology - students created their own roller coasters to visualize how gravity causes an object to fall; Reading - students read about how spinning tops use centrifugal force; Vocabulary - students researched and defined terms related to moving objects; STEM - students created spinning tops that could maintain their spin for at least 8 seconds
From the Desk of Ms. Thiel:
What a wonderful and busy month!
The highlight of the month was our Lookingglass Informance. The children all worked so hard over the past six weeks and it was amazing to see them all up there on stage!
In math we continued our work with fractions as we moved into addition and subtraction. Students were able to add and subtract fractions as well as rename fractions and mixed numbers. We then moved into multiplying fractions as unit fractions, whole numbers and mixed numbers.
This month we finished our novel The One and Only Ivan. The children did a wonderful job identifying various forms of figurative language throughout the text. We also discussed the many themes presented throughout the novel and how it applied to our story in various ways. We ended our novel by creating a theme poster in which the students selected an appropriate theme and found specific quotations in the text to support this theme.
Science led us to our unit on Energy. Investigations covered this month included the history behind light as well as focusing on different energy sources and how they relate to our everyday life. The students are very excited to move further into this unit as we will be working on multiple hands on activities surrounding magnetic forces and poles.
In Social Studies we completed Unit 2; Exploration and Settlement. We ended our unit by studying Spanish explorations. We focused on the obstacles and accomplishments of these explorers as well as traced their routes. The students will move into a study on the Colonies next.
Our published informative books were all so unique! I loved the time and effort the children put into making these. They truly demonstrated their expertise in their chosen topic! We enjoyed a Writer’s Celebration to share our published pieces with the rest of the third grade classes.
Looking forward to a great spring!
From the Desk of Ms. Caskey:
How is it the end of February already?!? 317 has wrapped up a fictionalized account of a real girl's battle with leukemia in Hiroshima in Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. We supplemented this short text with various articles on the Pacific side of WWII and the nonfiction account of Sadako's life. We wrapped up the month reading excerpts from The Jungle Book. We will move onto a memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
We continue to work on verbs during grammar, and we've moved onto various Greek and Latin roots for vocabulary. Your fifth grader should be looking for these roots everywhere in their reading! In writing, we are moving toward a second memoir and we will be inviting families in soon so they can hear the "story of us."
Math has taken us to our geometry unit, where we are exploring two-dimensional polygons. We have kept either area or perimeter constant in rectangles, created congruent or non-congruent rectangles. We will move onto parallelograms and eventually three-dimensional objects with surface area and volume.
We wrapped up our political and economics unit with our classroom city simulation. Bell City was established, had a system of laws in place, created businesses, and kept a city economy thriving. It was a wonderful experience and led to great discussions during Financial Literacy. We will move onto ancient history for the remainder of the year.
Finally, we left Planetary Science with a look at the moons of Jupiter and exoplanets. Our new Science unit on Earth History will be off and running in March, which ties in nicely to ancient history. We will simulate many rock tests performed by geologists, as well as create a model of water erosion based on the Colorado Plateau. We will focus on the Grand Canyon area as a real Earth wonder.
From the Desk of Mr. Klein:
In sixth grade physics, the work for the past month has centered on three areas of study: force and motion, volume measurement, Newton’s three laws of motion. Those students who display mastery of a particular skill will be allowed greater freedom and more choices in future endeavors.
Seventh grade literature featured a second look at science fiction short stories and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Future work in this subject area will allow for the students to have greater freedom and more choices as the class explores standards-based grading.
Work in seventh grade chemistry focused on three areas: atomic configuration of elements and ions, the different types of chemical reactions, the electronic configuration of simple elements, exothermic and endothermic reactions, and density calculations.
In addition, the seventh graders travelled to the International Museum of Surgical Science to experience the advances made in the study of medicine over the years and to view an amputation demonstration.
The eighth graders in their study of biology stressed the development in the theory of evolution as they reviewed the puzzle of the diversity of life, explored the ideas that shaped the thinking of Charles Darwin, probed the relationship between genes and variation, and scrutinized the process of speciation.